New Live Rock - ID Hitchers

Just bought a 125 gallon on craiglist and some liverock came with it. about 40lbs. I don't have the room in my 55 gallon for that much more rock so I have it sitting in my garage in a large rubbermade container with a heater and small powerhead. I also took the light off of my fuge and put it over the rock for the time being.

I go out there to turn the light on this morning and find this:

Im assuming the long thing is a bristleworm. What about the star looking thing? It's about the size of a zoa polyp and it's white and there are a lot of them. The thing on the bottom right is some sort of snail that didn't look like it was alive so I removed it.

Good/Bad?


The rock also has some aipastia on it. I put two peppermint shrimp into the container to see what they could clean up. Should I just give up on the live rock and turn it into base rock? The rock does have some nice mushrooms (about 50) and a few torch corals, leathers, and other good things on them.

 

well i think that is a bristle worm and maybe a juvenile sea star? I'm no expert so I'm not exactly sure

 

The starfish may be an astrea starfish.

 

Check out this link

Oregonreef.com

If that worm is as big as it looks on your picture, after reading this article, you'll probly have no problem squishing it, lol.

I think the white thing is an astreana star. Some say reef safe some do not. I have them and love them. They get into the tight places between my zoas and eat algea. I have never seen them eating any coral. I've heard they can scratch the crap out of acrilic if they get stuck between your mag cleaner and the acrilic.

 

Well glad I got it at the 6inch stage and not the 8 foot stage

the asterina stars, from what i've read seem to be about a 50/50 split as to keeping them or not.

 

The star will not cause any problems and it is an asterinids star. The snail is a stomatella species and is good. The worm looks like bristle worm.

 

There you have it. I still cringe when I see worms though, lol.